Photos in Google Earth via Google Docs

A while back I posted about how to put photos in Google Earth pop-up balloons using a spreadsheet. Well, with the new Google Docs drawing tool it just got easier. Here's how to do it:

1] If you have an image on your PC, fine. If not, find an image on the web that you want to use (images on the web might have restrictions, creative commons search gets around this). Right click and select 'copy Image URL'.

2] Go to Google Docs . Click the 'Create New' button top left and select drawing. If you haven't got a Google login you'll need to set one up.

3] Click Insert>Image. If you have the image on your PC select 'Choose File' and select the image you want. If you are using a web image, click the chain icon labelled 'URL' and paste in the URL from [1]. If the pasted image does not fill the square, click it and drag the corner boxes so it does.

4] Click the share button top right then 'publish to web'>'start publishing'. If your screen image is large you might want to select the small image size from the 'Image Size' drop down menu. Copy the text from the embed code.

5] Open Google Earth, create a new placemark (the yellow map pin icon top left). Paste the text in the big 'Description' box then drag the 'New Placemark' dialogue out of the way and drag the flashing yellow box to where you want the placemark to be. Select OK.

6] Your placemark should now show your image when clicked.

Additional Things to do:

• You can add annotations, text or titles to the image in step [3]. In fact, you don't even need the image, you could have a diagram to show.
• Add a title to the placemark in step [5]

Notes:

• If there are any alterations to the image in Google Docs it will show up in placemarks even if opened on another computer.
• The images won't appear if you are offline, if this is important to you then use the spreadsheet system

Voluntered Geog. Info: Haiti and Teaching

This video is about how volunteers used satellite imagery to digitise roads, refugee camps and other infrastructure in Haiti following the earthquake.

IMHO its the most important instance of what is becoming known as VGI (Volunteered Geographic Information) yet to occur on the web. Those who organised it and those who just took part deserve a great deal of respect, I think we’re going to see a lot more mapping like this in future emergency situations and this was the first example. As they point out, key to this was the rapid publication of high quality satellite imagery.

As it happens, I’ve just completed PolyMap a VGI based educational project for Southampton University where we got the students to create a thematic map via a web service based on Google Maps API* . They mapped tree cover around Mt St Helens volcano in USA to see how trees had recovered since the 1980 eruption, click the image to see a demo:


Thoughts for Others considering setting up VGI: Most of the following was obtained via written student feedback:

• I gave students a background presentation of how VGI related to crowd sourcing and other VGI projects (here as a PDF), the students said this helped them realise what they were doing was a valid technique beyond the Mt St Helens problem. Could be useful as a motivator in non-educational situations?
• I split the area into a grid and assigned them a square each. This helped in getting the entire area mapped although there was some problems with people working in the wrong square etc.
• They complained that the classification scheme was difficult to apply whilst I had thought it was fairly simple and well explained. It goes to show that great care is needed in defining and then explaining classification schemes. My video tutorials on how to produce the map were very popular, fool proof documentation and instructions are well worth the investment of time.
• They liked the fact that I collated the data and interpreted it in a presentation after they had finished and working in groups on a shared problem.
• Advances in Google MyMaps since we started the project mean it would have been possible and much easier to do this project using Google MyMaps rather than the bespoke PolyMap service.

Other Educational Points:

• Student feedback was the most positive feedback I've had for a long time!

• The 1980 Mt St Helens eruption is a great topic to teach using technology, satellite images, youtube clips and photographs from USGS are out there in abundance. I think having an interesting context (the eruption) is possibly more important to the learning than the quality of the VGI data.

ArcGIS.com: ESRI's neo-geography tool

Interesting talk by Jack Dangermond and colleague at Where 2.0 discussing their soon to be released web service: ArcGIS.com.

Background: The reception from the crowd is polite rather than 'stoked' which isn't surprising, this is a collection of neo-geographers (web based maps people) watching a talk from the major player of paleo-geography* desktop GIS.

I think its fair to say that ESRI (Jack's company) has failed to capitalize on the virtual globe or slippy maps (e.g. Google Maps ) market over the last 5 years and now they're playing catch up. Jack's statement that the distinction between neo-geography and GIS was disappearing was interesting, pretty much everything they demoed I'd classify as neo-geography rather than GIS - it was all user side features rather than producer side.

Interesting Features: There were a number of interesting features to the web service shown:

1. Easy to search for maps from providers (Tree maps from Washington city)
2. Easy to mash-up maps and create a new map (Tree maps and a chosen base map)
3. Easy to share your map with a group or with the world
4. Easy to add annotations to public services (here is a pot hole, please mend it Mr Government)
5. Automatic integration with mobile devices (currently only iPhone)
6. Presentation mode (earthquakes and aftershocks in Chile)

All the listed features are currently available on Google Maps and Google Earth. Google My Maps does 1 and 3, customisations of Google Maps do 4 and 5 while Google Earth does 2, 5 and 6. The possible strength of ArcGIS.com is that all these features come in one application. However, the devil is in the usability detail, I'll have to wait for the release to see if they have made it usable enough for the public, usability is a key reason why Google Earth/Maps have flourished so far, if ESRI haven't cracked this issue then I think the service isn't going to fly.

*edited 9th Apr: I didn't mean this to be disparaging just as the opposite of neo-geography

UK Election Map: Triumph of Style over Content

In June last year I reviewed the visualizations the BBC were doing for the European election. Well, the BBC have released their new version:

I'm reviewing it again because they've obviously spent a lot of time and money putting the visualization together but it still comes out as more stylish than useful.

Pros: To be fair to them since last time:

• They've taken out the chart junk 3D
• They're not differentiating areas using grey any more (at least not in the clip).

Cons:

• Why are the floor supports coming up in front of the map? I was left thinking they were marking a specific region for further discussion until I worked out what was going on.
• By putting the map on the floor instead of the wall you distort the view, making it difficult to locate your chosen place on the map (as per last time)
• A map on the floor can't be pointed at like one on a wall, making it difficult to follow which bit of the map is under discussion. You could get away with this if you annotated the map as it was discussed but they don't.
• Beyond this clip the presenter starts discussing other elements than the map. To make the map visually move to the background the map gets a grey mask in front. Unfortunately there seems to be a colored halo around the map and this spreads out from behind the grey mask. Switching the whole map from color to gray and reducing the opacity would be more effective.

GI Usability Conference Talk and Notes

Google Earth Tours: Testing spatial content

View more presentations from mukih.

Muki has posted my recent talk slides along with the other slides from the day. They're cryptic without my audio explanations so I've produced some notes for you to read as you scan through the slides.

GI Usability Conference and the Last Half Meter

Sorry for the absence of posts, I've been too busy over the last week or so but the activities that have kept me away have generated lots of ideas for posts that I'll be getting to shortly.

What is Usability of Geographic Information?: On Tuesday I was at the second GI usability conference (programme and links). The most interesting aspect of the day was comparing my own ideas about what GI usability is against others. To me, its about how data is visualised on screen which is most of what I discuss in this blog. To others it included data structures, metadata, interoperability, topics I think are important but didn't strike me as being 'usablility' before.

The Last Half Meter: Whilst the other definitions of usability I came across are important topics IMHO there is a lack of discussion/knowledge in the area of GI visualisation. To me the situation is nicely summed up by diagrams like this one:

It's a subset of a data flow schema about how a user queries a GI dataset and it's similar to a number of other diagrams I've come across by techies about GISs. in terms of getting the system to work you can clearly see the technical links, what database talks to what etc. but what is missing IMHO is any sort of consideration about how that data is displayed on screen and how the user will interact with it, if you will, the 'last half meter' between the user and the hardware. I want to know more about what will happen in the red box, for example:

• How many screens will they need to navigate to post a query?
• What happens if their query doesn't produce the answer they really wanted, how will they iterate to a better query?
• How will documentation/help/FAQs be offered to them?

All the above are key questions that affect the overall performance of a GIS/user system but they are represented in the figure by a single arrowhead delivering perfect information to the user in a kind of Vulcan mind meld interaction. I think this shows the bias of techies to want to solve the straightforward technical issues like interoperability or speed of display but don't like addressing the messy issue of how the user interacts with the GIS.

In some senses this analysis is a bit unfair, I'm drawing a big conclusion from a single diagram but my argument predicts that you should see GI projects where they author has invested a lot of time in solving technical issues but not tackled some basic rules of cartography/usability. The Hurrican Gustav project that I reviewed is a perfect example and its by no means the only one.

Google Streetview Covers All Roads in UK

Via Ed Parsons I learn that the Google streetview car has been busy covering the length and breadth of the UK:

View Larger Map

This is the Ford in Neen Savage, Shropshire, UK. I've spent many happy hours here throwing sticks for dogs to fetch from the river.

Google seem to have done all the rural public roads in the UK including dead ends and this rather fetching view of the flow country in the North of Scotland, I would guess the least populated area of the country

View Larger Map

Its an amazing piece of work, I'm drooling at the educational possibilities, e.g. getting students to hunt for abandoned buildings in Scotland and Hampshire then comparing the results as an exercise in rural deprivation.

Streetview in Google Earth: You can also access the same data in Google Earth and incorporate it in a tour. This KMZ example is a location we take our students to and the tour could serve as a brilliant introduction or debrief for a field visit. A shame the tour doesn't activate the detailed imagery in the Streetview bubble but hey, the students can go back and explore for themselves later.

Streetview Tour HowTo: To produce your own streetview tour in Google Earth:

1. Turn on the Streetview layer in the Places column. Select the streetview bubble you wish to use.
2. Right click the Bubble, copy and then past into your Places column.
3. Record a tour as normal, by double clicking the bubble in the main screen you will be flown to the centre of it.
4. Save the bubble and tour in a file and you're done.

Well done Google! I'm fascinated to know how many cars it took to do this, it must have been a lot of fun doing too, well, except for the Luddite mobs defending middle England.